All about Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Microsoft 365, Office 2021 and earlier versions.
Make the Office ribbon more useful, add your choice of buttons
Any Office ribbon tab can be more useful for you. By trimming some of the buttons you don’t need, making room for the buttons you want. We’ll show you how to remove some of the less needed ribbon sections (likely from the Developer tab) to make more room for your own buttons. Previously we’ve explained […]
Add Chess Piece symbols to Word, PowerPoint and Office
Insert any of the chess piece symbols available in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Office apps. King, Queen, Bishop, Knight. Rook and the lowly Pawn all with different looks, depending on the font plus three pieces available in Microsoft Office icons and the single chess piece emoji. Chess Pieces – the full list Here’s the […]
Visio Data Visualizer converts Excel into a diagram
A new Excel add-in converts an Excel 365 worksheet into a Visio diagram. You don’t need to buy Visio to use the Microsoft Visio Data Visualizer in its simple form, just Excel 365 for Windows/Mac or Online. It’s an interesting tool and worth checking out if you make diagrams or flowcharts. The add-in inserts example […]
Changed link handling in Outlook for Windows
You may have noticed that opening a link in Outlook behaves differently and not in your chosen browser. That’s because Microsoft wants to push their Edge browser, though they have some excuses for the change. When you click on a link in Outlook for Windows, it might open in the Edge browser, even though you’ve […]
Three traps in a printer ink subscription
We’ve always been suspicious of printer toner/ink subscriptions and there are at least three traps in these heavily marketed offers. What is a printer ink subscription? Ink subscription plans, like HP’s Instant Ink, work with the customer paying a monthly fee for ink/toner to be supplied as required. The internet connected printer sends a message […]
Save money on printer ink, toner and consumables
Printer makers are happy to sell a cheap printer because they make big profits on ink, toner and other consumables. Here’s how to save money. Buy in advance Stores and printer makers rely on people waiting until they’ve run out of ink/toner before rushing to get more. You pay a high premium for that rushed […]
HP messes up their printers – twice
HP is getting publicity for their printers in all the wrong ways with two faulty firmware updates. One update stops HP Printers from using non-HP ink cartridges while another update stops some printers working at all! “Dynamic Security” for HP Printers HP’s update to printers add what they call “Dynamic Security” – which is now […]
Easily install an Office VBA macro
Here’s how to easily install VBA code or macro in Microsoft Office. Adding some code you’ve seen on a web site or been given is simple once you know the little tricks. Often people are given some Office VBA code to use with Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook but without instructions for how to install […]
Changing Measurement Units in PowerPoint
Changing the measurement units in PowerPoint is possible but unnecessarily complicated, we’ll show you how in both Windows and Mac. The Measurement Units show up in the ruler and also in places like the size and exact positioning of images. Measurement option – US or Metric Ideally you want to change between the main measurement […]
New Keyboard shortcuts for Office menus
New shortcuts are coming to Microsoft Office 365 for Windows which will help navigate larger pull-down menus with keystrokes. Plus the screen-reader labels are being improved. In short: the Tab key moves between sections/blocks of a pull-down menu.That’s it … so simple and perhaps surprising that it’s not there already. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s description of these […]
Sign a PDF from your smartphone
Add your personal signature to a PDF with the Microsoft 365 app for Apple or Android devices. You can sign a PDF and save your signature for quicker reuse with other documents. This is a useful trick if someone sends you a document to be signed. Instead of printing, signing then scanning the signed paper […]
Beware, Microsoft is looking in password locked ZIP files
Microsoft is now looking at the contents of password protected ZIP files stored on OneDrive, Sharepoint and other cloud services. Maybe with honorable intentions but there are serious privacy concerns that haven’t been acknowledged. For a long time, Microsoft’s antivirus and safety systems have opened up compressed ZIP files to check the contents for nasty […]
Check, tick and cross symbols galore
There are different check mark, tick or cross symbols available in Word, PowerPoint or other Office apps. Here’s an easy searchable list of all Unicode symbols plus in modern Office ✅✔️☑️ is called a ‘check mark‘ or ‘check‘ in some places and ‘tick‘ in others. Same symbol, different English names. ❌X╳ has many more symbols […]
Nine easy statistics in Excel
There are at least NINE simple statistics formulas and functions in Excel that can summarize a list of numbers into something easy to understand. Often Excel has lists of numbers or money that makes little sense until you add a summary like this: We have a table called CountbyState and want to know something about […]
Thumbs Up👍emoji in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
Insert Thumbs Up or Like👍symbol into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Thumbs Up / Like👍emoji is typically used when you ‘like’ something or have approval/agreement. It’s commonly used as a quick response to a comment on Facebook, Twitter and it’s coming to Office Comments too. […]
Copy VBA Macros between Microsoft Word documents
VBA code or Macros can be copied between Microsoft Word documents and templates quite easily if you know where to look. We’ve seen people laboriously copying code between VBA editor windows, not realising there’s an easier way. It’s not entirely necessary but usually the two macro-enabled documents/templates are opened first. Open Macro Organizer Go to View […]
